Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2010 | Page 47

INTERVIEW

February/March 2010

life

Photo: Bill pictured on the Nissan shoot, Morocco

extension: “He said: ‘don’t worry about it,
they’re only going to go and get hookers
, get drunk or go to the discotheque, they
can wait!’.”
Fun in the fast lane took its toll on
Bill, however. “I used to cry myself to
sleep,” he says, recalling the pressure of
producing the current film and brochure,
all the while budgeting for the next. “I
never saw Judy and when I saw Bertie I’d
think ‘hey, you’ve grown!’ I had to get
out.”
When he first arrived in Spain Bill
started a news programme for a local TV
station with an American journalist. “I
couldn’t bear the fact the Brits out there
were so ignorant about the country. So
we translated half an hour of Spanish
news into English.” Spain had been in
Bill’s family a long time: his grandfather
had copper mines there, and was the
accountant for the first ever Spanish
football team, Huelva Real FC. His father
and elder siblings had been brought up
there when his father was in MI6.
On the back of the TV work, Bill was
asked to produce a rock festival in
Malaga, dealing with radio coverage,
promotion and posters. It showcased a
mix of musicians from bands which had
been big in the 1960s and 70s; Arthur
Brown, the Pretty Things, Lena Lovage,
Bad Company – even someone from the
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Bay City Rollers. “I ended up being best
man at Arthur Brown’s wedding, at the
festival venue,” says Bill with his slightly
baffled smile. “God knows why, it’s not as
if we knew each other well.”
Bill still has his locations business
in Spain, but you detect a slight
disillusionment with the country and
what it has to offer. “Everyone is so
materialistic, kids are buying on credit

‘Even if they grow up to be
stockbrokers, children need to
be encouraged to hang on to
their creative side: hence the
film festival’
from the age of 16: and the people are
just rude.” His wife Judy used to have a
relocations business, sourcing wonderful
properties for foreign buyers, but as the
quirky dwellings dried up it became less
fun. Bill, Judy and Bertie Bristow decided
to move to the Isle of Wight.
His connections with Rutger Hauer have
continued over the years, with Bill helping
him with the Rutger Hauer Filmfactory, in
Rotterdam, which now is an annual film
school event.
Since 2008 he has been master of
ceremonies at I’ve Seen Films, a festival

in Milan, as well as sitting on the judging
panel with such household names as
Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan, Robert
Rodriguez, and Miranda Richardson.
And now would it be too fanciful to
say that all those many strands of Bill
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